


In Bloom

by wynnebat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Childhood Friends, Flowers, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Harry Potter & Tom Riddle Attend Hogwarts Together, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26235286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: In which Harry plants flowers at the Gaunt house on Privet Drive, mistakes Tom for a girl, and finds the love of his life, eventually.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Comments: 21
Kudos: 1210
Collections: Tomarry Reverse Big Bang 2020





	In Bloom

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for sharing your art and giving me a bunch of inspiration, anonymous artist! ❤
> 
> I will link the wonderful art as soon as it's publicly available. The art is based on the concept of Harry mistaking Tom for a girl as a kid, then meeting Tom again much later.

Aunt Petunia is angry again.

Harry tucks himself into the cupboard before he can be sent there deliberately, but it’s no use. His cupboard door is slammed open with a bang. His aunt doesn’t deign to lower her head to look into the cupboard. “Tend to the garden. You’ve let it go this week.”

“Yes, Aunt Petunia.” Harry’s words are immediate, but he waits until his aunt leaves until he ducks out of the cupboard.

Outside, the summer sun beats down on him. Harry’s mouth is dry. He starts with the side of the house first, where the neighbor’s tree casts a shadow. Harry stands under it, trying to convince himself that he feels better already, and not as swelteringly hot as under the sun. He is sweating already. Aunt Petunia will be cross with him later for it. And about the dirt that will cover Harry’s secondhand clothes.

He hasn’t figured out how to garden without dirtying himself yet. There must be a way; sometimes he peeks over the fence and sees Mrs. Next Door tend to her garden in a summer dress, holding sheers against a bush that is already perfectly sculpted. She never seems to pick up any dirt.

Harry plucks the barest nubs of weeds out of the flowerbed, digging around in the dirt for them. He takes care of the garden too well for any to be obvious.

Just above him, the kitchen window is open. It’s Sunday, which means Uncle Vernon is home, and it is to him that Aunt Petunia complains. Harry tries to ignore it. It’s the same old thing.

“Pet, why do you care so much about that blasted house?” Uncle Vernon’s voice eventually booms.

Harry winces, but Uncle Vernon doesn’t sound that angry. And he’s talking to Aunt Petunia, not Harry. Petting the leaf of a happily blooming flower, Harry wonders if other people like the company of plants better than their family. Aunt Petunia would call him ungrateful for the very thought. Harry supposes that she is right. Now, when his throat is parched and the top of his head is hot to the touch, he doesn’t feel grateful at all. He likes the flowers, but if he could, he would tend to them after dark.

On the other side of the wall, Aunt Petunia huffs in frustration. “As the co-chair of the Privet Drive Ladies’ Association, it is up to me to ensure that the houses on our street meet a certain standard. The minimum standard, Vernon. I’m not asking for a perfect yard. But to think of her empty flowerbeds and yellow grass! It’s unsightly. It— it lowers real estate values. I won’t stand for it.”

“But Pet, what do we care about real estate values? We don’t want to move.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Petunia sniffs. “Even our lawn is better than hers.”

“Henry from number eight says our lawn is the best on the street,” Vernon says with an audible pride that he’s never shared with Harry.

Harry feels a warmth in his chest. It’s partly from the sun, partly what he assumes is _the_ _satisfaction of a job well done_ , a concept that Vernon goes on about at length sometimes when he thinks Harry is asking for too much.

After a suitable length of time in the garden, Harry knocks on the front door. Aunt Petunia sends him away, claiming him to be too filthy to return yet, but Harry assumes she wants to have the house to herself now that Dudley is at the Polkisses and Uncle Vernon said something about going off to the hardware store. Harry washes his hands and knees under the spray of the garden hose, then points it at his head, shivering as the water runs down his neck. If someone asked Harry, and if they wouldn’t get mad at him for it, he would say that Aunt Petunia cares so much because she likes to be unhappy with things. Harry is the opposite. He likes being happy with things, but that can be hard on Privet Drive. He hasn’t made any friends in primary school or around the neighborhood—Dudley has made sure of it—so there is nowhere for him to go.

Instead of sticking around the yard, Harry starts walking. He only realizes he’s going in the direction of the very house Aunt Petunia talked about when it comes into view. It’s the last house on Privet Drive, as far away from the Dursleys as one could get.

Looking at it now, Harry does find himself agreeing with his aunt.

The yard looks bad.

It’s none of his business. It’s not Aunt Petunia’s business, either. What does it matter what someone else’s yard looks like? But it’s not nice-looking. It’s not even sort of okay-looking, like the Stuarts’ yard, which is tended to once a month by a bored teenager with a lawn mower. It’s just plain bad.

Harry tugs at the frayed edges of his shirt, wondering if he should knock on the door. No one on Privet Drive likes him—it’s because he’s a delinquent, although Harry’s not sure what his crime was—so it’s not like they will listen to him if he says that Aunt Petunia is thinking of making an official complaint. Who to, Harry doesn’t know. Maybe someone out there who cares about yards as much as Aunt Petunia does.

It’s not just the yard. The porch has splinters poking up, paint peeling off and blowing into the untended garden. The mailbox reads Gaunt, a name that suits the house.

Harry leaves without saying anything.

It tugs at him anyway, the empty flowerbeds. Especially the window boxes. Who has empty window boxes? They could be filled with herbs or flowers instead of sitting there empty and wanting.

Aunt Petunia lets him back in upon his return. After dinner, Harry lays awake in his cupboard after the Dursleys go to bed. He doesn’t so much as make up his mind to do it as simply gets out of his cot and reaches for the cupboard door. It’s unlocked. His aunt and uncle haven’t been any angrier at him than usual. Harry hopes that this isn’t what tips them over. It’s been a quiet summer so far.

He tiptoes out through the hallway and out the front door, grabbing his sneakers but putting them on only when he’s outside. The door hinges are quiet. Harry oiled them himself only just last week.

From the shed, he grabs his gardening tools, along with anything else he might need. It weighs him down as he walks toward the house. The night is dark, with only a few streetlights to guide his way. When Harry arrives to the house, all the lights are off. He’s never seen anyone at this house. If not for Aunt Petunia saying she’s tried to appeal to the owner, he would have thought it was abandoned.

As he approaches the window boxes, Harry realizes he’s being _really_ stupid.

If he didn’t know what made him a delinquent before, then certainly messing with someone’s yard would make him one. It isn’t enough to make him turn around. The bucket of water and bagged soil are heavy.

As quietly as possible, he gets to work. After poking at the two window boxes with a spade, he finds that there is still some life there, buried under the dry, cracked soil. Harry chooses the little seed bags at random. It’s too dark to see the labels properly. He goes with the ones that give him a good feeling, that match the feeling already in the window boxes. Next, he gets to work on the flowerbeds around the house. The weeds don’t go down without a fight. Harry coaxes them out of the soil, starting a pile of them beside him. It’s not that he dislikes weeds, personally. They’re a plant like any other. But they’re not supposed to be here, in flowerbeds meant for hydrangeas and begonias. Harry doesn’t plant petunias if he can help it, and Aunt Petunia never buys any lily seeds or grown plants.

Once the flowerbed is taken care of, Harry lies down on the grass in front of the house, feeling tired and almost satisfied. He can’t drag a lawn mower here. It would wake up the whole neighborhood and then he really would get in trouble. Quietly, he pets the grass, and says, “Don’t you want to be smaller? It would be a big help.”

Dudley always makes fun of him for talking to plants, but Dudley isn’t here right now.

The grass doesn’t reply. Harry doesn’t expect it to. That would be taking it too far. He just keeps petting it, feeling it poke against his fingers.

He hopes that the owners of the house like the flowers.

It’s an apology, sort of. _Sorry my aunt hates you for your lawn._

It’s also just plain wayward rebellion. The moon is big, the sky is dark, and Harry is _disobeying_. It’s the happiest he’s felt all summer. He really is a delinquent.

After a while, he picks up his supplies, throwing the weeds in the now empty water bucket, and heads back. His cupboard doesn’t feel as small now, not with the memory of the night lingering as he falls asleep.

In the morning, Harry is excited. He tries to find excuses to walk past the Gaunt house, but Aunt Petunia keeps him busy all day. It’s Uncle Vernon’s birthday soon. The house has to be thoroughly cleaned for the family party, to which Aunt Marge is invited and Harry is not. Harry finds himself looking forward to sneaking some cake for himself after the party when he’s doing the cleaning up. Aunt Petunia never finishes her dessert.

It’s not until night that Harry can sneak out again.

He retraces his steps from the other night, this time not laden down with gardening things. He’ll be there and back, no one will even notice. All Harry wants to do is see.

Even in the darkness, Harry can see the results of his efforts. He walks across the lawn and delights in the progress. The flowerbeds and window boxes are no longer empty. Where weeds used to reign are growing plants and freshly blooming flowers. The herbs in the window boxes have sprung up well. Harry sticks his nose into the basil, careful not to step on the flowers below.

“ _There_ you are,” says a voice from someone who’s too close for comfort.

With a strangled yelp, Harry jumps back and stumbles to the ground, hitting the grass with a thump, only barely managing to steady himself with the palms of his hands. Shaken, he looks to the source of his shock.

There is someone standing in the front doorway, then stepping out without a care, closing the door and walking closer. She’s young, only around Harry’s age, and dressed in a loose white dress with long sleeves. Her hair is dark and wavy, longer than Harry’s but shorter than Harry usually sees on girls. Even in the darkness, there is enough light from the moon to glimpse her blue eyes and her pretty face.

Harry’s face is all kinds of red. He didn’t mean to be caught.

“Well? Don’t you have anything to say?” the girl asks, stopping in front of him.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says, cringing. “I didn’t mean— I just wanted to see the flowers.”

“You’re the one who put them here,” the girl says.

It’s not a question, but Harry still nods. He tries to think of an explanation that makes sense, then just goes with the truth. “My Aunt Petunia, she’s head of the neighborhood association? Er, co-head. She doesn’t like your yard. She kept talking about reporting you properly to the town.”

The girl frowns. “Who does she think she is?”

Harry shrugs. “She just, she cares a lot about this sort of stuff. The family who lived in number eight moved because of her. I know it’s because of her because they dropped a letter in everyone’s mailbox before they moved and said she was harassing them for years and that she’s a, uh, bad lady. They said some stuff. I thought that if I planted you flowers, she would leave you alone.”

“Mother isn’t bothered by muggles like her, nor am I,” the girl huffs. With evident suspicion, she asks, “Why do you care? You don’t know us. What do you want for this?”

“Want?” Harry repeats. His brow furrows. He feels like an idiot. Is he supposed to want something? “Um, I don’t want to get in trouble.”

Harry looks down at his hands, idly scraping some dirt off his palm with his nail. He’s still sitting on the ground. Something about the girl’s attitude makes him nervous. It’s not that she’s pretty—although she is—it’s the way she speaks to him, like she’s digging around in Harry’s soul until she gets what she wants out of it. Harry can’t imagine she’ll find anything there. It’s just a bunch of weeds.

He wonders if muggles is a bad word. Uncle Vernon has never used it.

“I just want to help,” Harry says, unable to look at her. “I think it’s mean, what Aunt Petunia does. You’re—” nice, he means to say, but that’s not true not only because he’s never met her before but because something tells him she doesn’t spend a lot of time being nice “—my neighbor. You shouldn’t have to deal with Aunt Petunia.”

“Only you have to deal with her?”

Harry looks up, uncertain about the intent look in her blue eyes. “She’s family. I have to.”

As much as Harry wishes differently, it’s the truth. The Dursleys are the only people left to take him in. He has no parents, no grandparents. As often as Aunt Petunia grumbles about ditching him in foster care, he knows she wouldn’t do it, if only because then she would have to tend to the garden herself.

The girl sighs. “At least frame it as getting back at your aunt instead of just being _nice_.” She says it like it’s a bad word. “Wasn’t it expensive to buy all these flowers?”

Shaking his head, Harry says, “They were just seeds. Aunt Petunia won’t miss them. We always have more than we need.”

“Seeds?” She turns around to examine the flowers again. When she turns back to Harry, she looks far more excited than she was a moment ago. “Are you a wizard?”

Harry wants to say yes. He wants her to think he’s cool, that he’s special, that he’s more than a boy who sleeps in a cupboard and has dirt on his hands. But he’s not.

“It’s not magic,” Harry says. “It’s flowers. That’s what flowers do, they grow.”

“That’s ridiculous. Flowers don’t grow _overnight_ without magic. If you plant a seed, it’s supposed to take weeks to grow. Or _months_.

Harry glances down at the flowerbeds again as though they will reveal some truth. But they’re just flowers, ordinary ones, no different than any Harry has grown before. “I thought that’s the way it’s supposed to happen.”

With a huff, the girl asks, “Have you ever seen anyone else’s flowers grow so fast?”

“No, but maybe they’re not doing it right. They’re not planting them right or watering them enough. That’s all it can be.” Harry thinks back on Mrs. Next Door’s flowers, which she bought grown from the nursery and re-planted into her flowerbeds. The same with many of their neighbors. The ones he noticed plant seeds took so long to grow that Harry nearly forgot about them altogether. If it is so easy to grow flowers from seeds, why doesn’t everyone do it like Harry? “Right?”

“I assume neither of your parents are magical. Or your aunt—I bet she would have cursed Mother by now if she could. I’ve never met another wizard my age, even if you’re one of _those_ ,” the girl says thoughtfully. “Get up already.”

Harry scrambles up. “My name is Harry.”

“I’m Tom,” she says. It’s a strange name for a girl, but Harry doesn’t comment on it. He wonders if it’s short for something. Tommie? “You’re a wizard. Don’t argue with me.”

“Okay,” Harry says, and smiles.

He really would like to be a wizard, so if Tom says he is one, is it so bad to believe her? When she looks at him with her blue eyes and haughty expression, all Harry can do is agree.

She tells him all about the magical world. Harry hangs onto her every word, stuck somewhere between wishing ardently that it could all be true and knowing he doesn’t have that sort of luck. He learns that Tom is two years older than him and is thus only a year from being of age to go to Hogwarts, where she will start learning magic.

“Do you think they’ll let me in when it’s my turn?” Harry frets.

“Headmaster Dumbledore doesn’t turn anyone away, mud— muggleborns and all.”

“Even if all I can do is make plants grow?”

“Mother says that the standards for Hogwarts slip further every year, so yes,” Tom says. “This can’t be everything you’ve done. Use your head. What else have you done that you haven’t been able to explain?”

Harry thinks back, then with some hesitance says, “Wind doesn’t put you on top of a roof, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t,” Tom says, but at least she doesn’t tell him he’s ridiculous again. “What else?”

“My teacher’s wig turned blue when she yelled at me. My hair grew back all the way overnight when Aunt Petunia cut it short. I’ve never run out of seeds from my packets even though it’s been years.”

“Hm,” Tom says, looking at him sharply. “Good.”

“Really?”

“Don’t make me repeat it.”

Harry turns red again. He hopes she can’t see well in the dark. His first impression had been right; Tom isn’t that nice, not really. But that just makes it all the more shocking when she says a nice word.

All too soon, Tom sends him home, and for the second time in two days Harry walks back from the Gaunt house under the cover of night, happiness growing in his chest. He doesn’t hesitate to visit Tom the next night or the next. His days are full of chores and cooking, which he does through yawns and blurry eyes, while his evenings are full of excitement and magic. Tom shows him cards with moving pictures on them, pointing out and insulting their future headmaster for reasons Harry doesn’t really understand, and hauls out her mum’s cauldron to show him the potion inside.

Tom never asks Harry inside, saying that her mum wouldn’t want her to associate with him.

“She’s protective?” Harry asks, thinking of the way that Aunt Petunia is with Dudley. At least Tom didn’t turn out mean like Dudley. She’s just a little sharp and strange, despite how soft her hair looks and the blue of her eyes.

“She likes things to be a certain way,” Tom says, not quite explaining. “That’s why I’m homeschooled.”

“Oh.” Heart beating loudly against his chest, Harry asks, “You don’t have any friends?”

“I wouldn’t befriend muggles.”

“What about a muggleborn?” Harry knows the word now. Tom has taught him, like she’s taught him everything else about the magical world, and he can’t help but think that Tom is the most magical part of it all. That she’s still talking to him, night after night. “I don’t have any friends, either.”

He’s told her about how Dudley scares everyone away from him and how the rumors about him do the rest. He’s told her everything, really. When Tom asks, Harry answers, even though his life sounds so boring compared to hers.

“It’s because they’re inferior to us magicals,” Tom sniffs. “You can be my friend. I guess. Maybe you’re a halfblood instead, since you never knew your parents.”

Harry nods. He doesn’t care about blood the same way Tom does, but, “We’re friends now?”

“Yes, Merlin help me,” Tom grumbles.

She doesn’t seem to expect Harry’s hug, letting out a small sound of surprise when he does it. Harry doesn’t see why; now that they’re friends, they can hug. Tom is a girl and girls hug their friends; in that moment, Harry is so glad she’s a girl, because he’s always wanted to hug someone. Slowly, Tom returns the hug. Harry wonders if she’s never hugged anyone, either. But that can’t be true. She has a mum and mums can hug their kids, too.

After a while, Harry lets go. Before he can stop himself, he kisses her cheek. “Good night, Tom!”

His lips are warm for the entire time he walks home.

He has a _friend_.

Harry feels as though he’s walking on clouds, as though nothing could possibly ever get him down. Even the Dursleys can’t ruin his spirits despite their best efforts. Harry doesn’t smile around them, of course, but Aunt Petunia still looks suspicious and assigns him more chores. Dudley pelts him with baseballs until he hits the television, which he blames on Harry. Even Aunt Marge’s dogs make a visit. Harry perseveres, rewarded by Tom’s presence nearly every night all summer. They talk, play cards, and Harry even teaches her what he knows about plants. Tom doesn’t love plants nearly as much as Harry does, but she says he’s going to be good at herbology at Hogwarts. Harry feels lightheaded at her praise and at the idea of maybe even being near the top of his class in one subject.

Like so many good things in his life, Harry’s time with Tom comes to an end.

The weather has turned cold now and Harry has started arriving in an old, moth-eaten jacket that Tom looks at like one might a dead mouse. During the day, he does his best to avoid Dudley at school and keep his head down, while his nights are always Tom’s.

On this night, all the lights are on at the Gaunt house. Harry hangs back until Tom pokes her head out of the door, looking around for him, then joins him.

“Mother and I are leaving,” Tom says without preamble. “We’re moving away.”

“Why?”

Tom shakes her head. “It’s complicated. I don’t have a lot of time to explain. Do you remember what I told you about blood purity?”

“That purebloods don’t like anyone who isn’t a pureblood.” Although Tom hadn’t said so, Harry adds his own opinion. “It’s dumb. None of that should matter.”

“Well, it does. A long time ago, Mother made a mistake, and my grandfather and uncle are still looking for us. They want to… correct it.”

“Was it a big mistake?”

“Unforgivably so, if you think the way they do.”

“What do you think?”

Tom’s lips twist. She looks older than she should, and Harry feels young, unable to understand everything Tom says because she never tells him enough. Harry knows that much. Finally, with fire in her eyes, Tom says, “I’m glad she made it. I’m always going to be glad for it. I’m alive and I’m going to stay that way.”

 _Oh,_ Harry thinks, and his chest hurts. “I’m glad for it too, Tom.”

“We’ll find each other again one day,” Tom says, sounding so sure of it while Harry isn’t sure of anything at all. “Stop that. Don’t cry. Oh just— look at this.”

Tom reaches for Harry’s hand places an object into it. With the light coming from the house, it’s easy enough to see it is a flower, with no stem attached. Harry recognizes it as one of the geraniums that Tom is particularly fond of, its color a deep, striking red. The flower has hardened to stone without losing any of its color.

“It’s for you,” Tom says. For the first time since he’s known her, she sounds unsure. “I learned to brew the Everlasting Elixir to make it. It won’t break or fade. The flowers are withering under the cold, but this one will stay.”

“Thank you, Tom.” Harry places it into his pocket, careful with it even though Tom says it won’t break. “I don’t have anything for you.”

“You can give me something the next time we meet,” Tom offers. “It’s not forever, Harry. It’s not allowed to be.”

“If you say so,” Harry says through a sniffle. He can’t look away from Tom. It’s the last time he’ll ever see her. No more meetings at night, no more friendship, no more blue eyes and cute hair and long dresses and stories of magic. No more _Tom_. “I’m going to miss you.”

From inside the house, a woman’s voice calls out Tom’s name.

Tom half turns away. “I need to go.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll miss you, too,” Tom says, then rushes off.

Harry stands there for a long time. He thinks that maybe Tom will come back out with her mum for a taxi, and they can have another goodbye. But the lights go off one by one and there is a loud cracking sound from inside the house. Harry knocks on the door, then peeks inside, seeing empty rooms. When he calls out Tom’s name, no one answers. Even then, he doesn’t leave until the sun begins to rise. The light brings no clarity with it, just an emptiness that Harry tries to swallow down.

He goes to school, does his chores, and goes back to Tom’s house just one last time. The wilting flowers are his only company. As the weeks pass, Harry cuts off a piece of twine from the gardening supplies and wraps it around the flower Tom gave him, fashioning it into a necklace. It disappears easily under the big castoff shirts he wears, but Harry always knows it’s there. It’s not a comfortable thing—a little too hard, the edges a bit sharp—but Harry rarely takes it off.

Tom doesn’t come back. Harry doesn’t wait for her, not really. He knows that sometimes people disappear from your life without rhyme or reason, whether it’s a drunken car crash or a flee from relatives.

He hopes Tom is safe.

On his eleventh birthday, Harry receives his Hogwarts letter. He presses it against his chest, against the flower, and grins. He’s going to school! Hope sneaks back in. Harry can’t keep it out, too excited by the possibility of seeing Tom again. Hopefully, Tom decided to attend Hogwarts rather than the other wizarding schools, and nothing has happened to her in the years since Harry has last seen her. He imagines Tom excelling at Hogwarts, all perfect and haughty and wonderful, impressing her teachers and calling her peers idiots.

Harry scribbles off his acceptance on the letter before the Dursleys can stop him.

Then, well. There is a lot of yelling from his aunt and uncle, and some screaming from Dudley. For a while, Harry is sent to live with Aunt Marge, then the Dursleys whisk him off on a strange, horrible road trip, never staying in one place for long. Harry is collected by Professor Sprout, who says he’s missed his own sorting ceremony, but that it’s perfectly alright.

She likes plants, too, Harry learns.

They go to Diagon Alley together and visit a magical nursery once Harry’s school supplies are bought, and Harry marvels at all the varieties of magical plants.

Once at Hogwarts, his new life begins, and Harry clings to it with both hands. The Dursleys feel like a bad memory once he walks the halls of the castle. He has to revisit the memory each summer, but Harry’s heart always remains at Hogwarts, where he spends as much time as he can in the greenhouses. His herbology OWL is all but guaranteed, but Harry doesn’t concern himself with grades so much as with what he can grow and what he can learn. He’s fast friends with Neville Longbottom, their beds side by side in the Gryffindor tower and their rows side by side in Greenhouse 5. Harry has a certain fondness for more dangerous plants, which he pairs with his secondary love of DADA, while Neville prefers medicinal plants.

As the years pass, Harry’s hope that one day he will find Tom grows dim.

There are several Toms at Hogwarts, the most well-known of which is Tom Riddle, who becomes head boy in Harry’s fifth year. But Harry doesn’t pay attention to him; that’s not _his_ Tom. Neither are any of the other Toms at school. He looks into tracking people with magic, but he doesn’t have a strand of Tom’s hair or a drop of her blood. He spends a lot of time looking at his necklace, wishing it were more than what it was, that maybe one day it would lead him to his Tom.

Halfway through his fifth year, Professor Sprout offers him an assistant position with her. Harry says yes before she even finishes the offer. Not only does it mean that he can be paid to do what he loves—a small amount, to be sure—but he can spend more time in the greenhouses. Harry no longer has to obey the curfew, which he takes to with enthusiasm. He’s always enjoyed the night and some plants in the greenhouses can only be watered when the moon is high.

On one such night, Harry has thrown off his outer robes and gone to check on the mandrakes, which are happily all still below ground. Their leaves have taken on a good color and when Harry presses his ear to the ground, he can hear faint sounds from the earth. Whatever potion Professor Snape needs them for, it looks like they’ll be good to go on time.

When he hears the greenhouse doors open and close, Harry looks up, expecting to see Professor Sprout or Neville. But the person heads for the seventh year herbology NEWT section, which is right across from the mandrake batch. There is a head boy badge on his chest, which answers the question of his identity before Harry can think to wonder.

Harry has always privately hated Tom Riddle. He’s heard so much about this Tom—brilliant, charismatic, head boy—but every mention of him is a reminder that this is the wrong Tom. He’s not Harry’s Tom.

“I hope I’m not bothering you,” the wrong Tom says as he strolls down the path between the rows of plants. “I haven’t had the time to check on my NEWT project today yet. I assume you’re Professor Sprout’s newest— assistant.”

There is a strange pause between Tom’s words. Harry wipes his hands on his trousers and stands to say hello. He finds that Tom isn’t looking at his face at all. His attention is lower.

It’s on his neck, on the necklace that hangs freely atop Harry’s shirt. It’s not anything of particular note and the flower isn’t even a wizarding one. It shouldn’t matter.

But it does. Tom’s expression is so surprised, so suddenly open compared to the way it was only moments ago.

Harry takes a step closer, then another. It doesn’t make any sense. But—

Those are Tom’s eyes. Harry would know that shade of blue anywhere. Tom’s voice is different, no longer childish and whispered in the night. Tom is still taller than him, still beautiful, still accomplished. It’s just that Tom… is a boy?

“Harry,” Tom breathes, and Harry’s heart skips a beat.

Harry gapes, trying to stop but failing. “Tom! You’re— you’re a boy!”

“What,” is the only thing Tom says, apparently in shock.

“And you’re Tom _Riddle_ , not Tom Gaunt,” Harry adds, trying to make his case against the mounting evidence that this Tom is his Tom.

“Riddle is my father’s last name,” Tom explains. His brow furrows. “What do you mean I’m a boy? Of course I am.”

“I— well—” Harry can feel the heat on his cheeks.

Tom sounds too amused. “Did you think I was a girl?”

“You were wearing a dress,” Harry says, sinking into despair.

“I was wearing robes.”

“It was white and flowy!”

“They were traditional sleeping robes.”

“Your hair was longer than mine,” Harry tries. He puts a hand over his face. Anything to not have to look at Tom. “And you were _so pretty_.”

“I don’t know if I should be flattered or offended,” Tom says, laughing. “Harry, look at me.”

Harry does. Because if he’s already dug the ditch and may as well sleep in it, he adds, “You’re still pretty.”

“Thank you.” Tom’s lips twitch with amusement.

Tom looks as though he’s seconds from laughing again. But better than that, he opens his arms, and Harry doesn’t need any more excuse to hug Tom. He hugs him tightly, already dreading having to let Tom go now that he’s found him again. Misunderstandings aside, Harry has missed Tom to an unspeakable degree.

“Can we be friends again?” Harry asks without letting go. He’s getting dirt all over Tom’s nice robes, but Tom doesn’t seem to mind.

“Yes, Harry,” Tom murmurs. His grip is just as tight as Harry’s. “You’re mine. It’s time we both remembered that.”

Eventually, Harry gives in to the fact that the hug has to end. He remembers the first time he hugged Tom and he’s moving before he second-guesses himself, kissing Tom on the cheek. Tom’s hair is shorter than it was all those years ago. Harry wonders if it’s just as soft.

Instead of letting it end there, Tom cups his face and kisses him on the lips. Harry sinks into the kiss. It’s not as much of a surprise as it maybe should be; it feels as though this is where they’ve been heading ever since they met, as though any route they could have taken would have led right here. Harry doesn’t want to be anywhere else.

*

Before long, Tom’s dormitory is full of flowers. From the desks to the bookshelves to the flower Harry tucks behind Tom’s ear now, kissing Tom at the same time.

“You started it,” Harry tells him, calling back to the flower Tom gave him the last time they saw each other as children.

“I took it from the flowerbeds you planted,” Tom replies, but without any real argument. He’s too content to be with Harry once more.

His dorm room is empty of everyone but the two of them. Tom’s yearmates know better than to comment on the flowers or on the Gryffindor who keeps finding his way into the dungeons. Harry has even remarked on how nice the Slytherins are to him now. Tom takes this with a sense of accomplishment. Slytherin house has been his for years; no one would dare to say a poor word to Harry.

“I still can’t believe you thought I was a girl,” Tom says, enjoying the way Harry blushes about it every time Tom brings it up. 

“Shut up,” Harry says, shaking his head. “It was an honest mistake. Anyone could have made it.”

His oblivious Gryffindor, his Harry, who had gone unnoticed by Tom for so many years.

Tom has slipped into the old habit of caring for Harry as easily as breathing. Harry has only gotten easier to talk to and easier to enjoy the presence of over the years. Tom wants to hate him for it, but he’s enjoying himself too much.

“I told you we would find each other one day,” Tom says, trailing a hand through Harry’s messy hair. His Harry, the first to befriend him, to steal his attention so thoroughly that even after all this time, Tom can’t get it back.

Harry’s eyes are bright, his smile wide. “I’m glad we did.”

As they kiss, Tom feels the press of Harry’s necklace against his chest and recalls those days of working so hard to make a gift for Harry. He and his mother had so little back then. Now that those problems have been solved, through methods that perhaps Harry wouldn’t approve of, Tom has everything he wanted for all those years ago. And to think, it is all because of Harry’s green thumb.

Tom holds Harry close, knowing that this time, he will never let Harry go. It’s quite in his favor that Harry feels the same way.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm also on [Tumblr](https://wynnefic.tumblr.com/).


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